Kurt VanLehn

Dr. VanLehn is as a Professor of Computer Science, a Senior Scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center, and Co-director of the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center , an NSF Center. He received a BS from Stanford (Mathematics, 1974) and a PhD from MIT (Computer Science, 1983). He was a Research Associate at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center until 1985, when he joined Carnegie-Mellon University as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Psychology. He moved to the University of Pittsburgh in 1990.

Dr. VanLehn's research interests focus on applications of artificial intelligence to education and cognitive modeling. At this writing, he is engaged in 4 major projects.  The PSLC is a large, NSF-supported research center that is studying robust learning in the context of real classrooms.  The Andes project is developing an intelligent tutoring system that helps college and high school students learn physics.  An NSF/ITR project is developing a natural-language based tutoring system for helping students learn both the conceptual and quantitative physics at the same time. The BALT project is determining whether effective learning can be detected via neuroimaging and thus be used to accelerate learning during computer tutoring.

My family:

• My wife, Micki Chi
• My daughter, Michelle Chase (Graduate student in Latin American History, New York University)
• My daughter, Catherine Chase (Greduate student in Education, Stanford University)
• My son, Reid Van Lehn (Undergraduate in Materials Science, MIT)

Last update: February, 2008